Roger Technology Goes to School

SAN ANTONIO (Ivanhoe Newswire/WTVM) -- If you have a cell phone, a television or even a fitness device...you’ve probably benefited from Bluetooth technology. Now, Bluetooth-type technology is stepping into the classroom to create a “user-friendly” environment for the hearing impaired. There is a new system that allows teachers to be heard by students, no matter where they are.

Getting Pre-K students to listen is challenging for any teacher, even more so when the students are hearing impaired.

Shelby Borgelt, a teacher at Sunshine Cottage School for Deaf Children in San Antonio, Texas explains, “Literally, I’m right here. It’s like I’m standing next to their ear.”

Borgelt gets help in her class from a new technology that allows teachers to speak directly into student’s ears.

Borgelt says, “The Roger system allows me to be anywhere in the room, and talk to those kids, and give them directions.”

The system uses Bluetooth- type technology. The teacher wears a headset; the student has a tiny receiver that snaps right into their hearing aid. Then, they activate their receiver at a connect station.

The result? Students can now hear their teacher, even when they are not looking at her.

For hearing impaired students, having the teacher’s voice easily heard is a big help in a noisy classroom.

Andrea Harvey, MS, Director of Audiology at Sunshine Cottage School for Deaf Children in San Antonio, Texas says, “That’s one of the most difficult situations that people with hearing impairment have is listening when there’s a lot of background noise, and those other distractions that are typical for a classroom.”

Older systems sometimes picked up interference from police scanners and other frequencies, roger does not; making hearing, and learning, a lot more fun.

The Roger system also allows hearing impaired students to plug directly into computers in order to hear music, videos and other lessons. Parents can get the system to use at home for around $3,000.

Authorities say a missing Pennsylvania teenager and a 45-year-old man who frequently signed her out of school without her parents' permission have been located in Mexico, and the man has been arrested.

Authorities say a missing Pennsylvania teenager and a 45-year-old man who frequently signed her out of school without her parents' permission have been located in Mexico, and the man has been arrested.

(AP Photo/Jennifer Kay). Six crosses are placed at a makeshift memorial on the Florida International University campus in Miami on Saturday, March 17, 2018, near the scene of a pedestrian bridge collapse that killed at least six people on March 15.

A matter of seconds between those who would live and those who would die as Florida pedestrian bridge topples down highway bustling with passing vehicles.

(Nick Wagner/Austin American-Statesman via AP). FBI agents work the scene of an explosion in Austin, Texas, Sunday, March 18, 2018. At least a few people were injured in another explosion in Texas' capital late Sunday, after three package bombs detonat...

Officials reported that an explosion in southwest Austin injured two men in their 20s who were hospitalized with injuries that didn't appear to be life-threatening.

(Joe Ahlquist/The Rochester Post-Bulletin via AP). Emergency personnel respond to the scene of a fatal stabbing Saturday, March 17, 2018, at the Salvation Army Castleview Residence in downtown Rochester, Minn. Police have arrested a man in the multiple...

Police have arrested a man in the fatal stabbing of two men at a Salvation Army apartment building in downtown Rochester, Minnesota.

Conway parents were arrested for unlawful neglect of a child after their baby was allegedly thrown from his car seat, according to a police report from Horry County Police. 20-year-old Juliana Biggerstaff and 22-year-old Jacob Lowman were arrested on Thursday after a complainant called police. Officers responded to a residence on Woodwinds Drive in Conway on March 14. Upon arrival, officers located a baby boy with a “visible injury to the top of his h...

Conway parents were arrested for unlawful neglect of a child after their baby was allegedly thrown from his car seat, according to a police report from Horry County Police. 20-year-old Juliana Biggerstaff and 22-year-old Jacob Lowman were arrested on Thursday after a complainant called police. Officers responded to a residence on Woodwinds Drive in Conway on March 14. Upon arrival, officers located a baby boy with a “visible injury to the top of his h...